In the Dark
by Sorrel
Summary: Dean has a deal with a demon and Sam just isn't happy about that. Ashodeus, however, doesn't care what Sam thinks. Dean, of course, is caught in the middle, which is never a good place to be. Hijinks and angst ensue. DeanOMC, DeanSam. SLASH, INCEST.
1. Chapter 1

Crack!fic ahoy, my darlings. Also, slash, incest, sex with demonic beings, angst, stupidity, and really pretentious language. I'm updating the next chapter in a day or so, but after that, I don't know when I'll write more, so please don't bug me about it. kthnxbye.**  
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**Part One

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There were a lot of things that Sam knew about Dean. Dean knew that if you asked his brother, Sam would say that he knew everything about Dean, that Dean was an open book, that he never kept secrets, not from his family. Like Dean would never be complicated, never have depths and darknesses, never be a real person.

But Sam didn't know everything.

He didn't know about what had happened in the two years that Sam had been away at Stanford. He didn't know about the battle that Dean had waged, almost entirely on his own, for nine bloody months. He didn't know about the deal that Dean had made to end it. He didn't know that Dean enjoyed it.

* * *

"So where are we headed next?" Sam wanted to know. 

"Why you asking me?" Dean said sharply.

"Well, you've been pouring over that map for the last two hours," Sam pointed out. "I just figured you'd caught us a case."

"Something like that," Dean said, and closed the map book shut with a snap. "But you're right about one thing. I do know where we're going."

"And that is?" Sam asked, with exaggerated patience. Dean favored him with a pointy-toothed smile.

"You'll see when we get there, won't you?"

* * *

If Sam hadn't volunteered to summon Bloody Mary, Dean would have. He'd never killed anyone. But it was definitely true that he had a secret, and someone had died. 

Sam had never asked why his eyes had bled when she'd crawled from the mirror. Probably assumed that it was just an affect of her manifestation. Dean was grateful for that. It was like Sam said- "You're my brother, and I'd die for you, but there are some things I need to keep for myself."

Ashodeus was one of those things.

* * *

"Dean, it's not funny anymore," Sam said sharply from the passenger seat. "Where are we going?" 

"It's not supposed to be funny," Dean said. "It's _supposed_ to be private. Unfortunately, we only have one car, so privacy goes out the window, is that it?"

"So it's not a case," Sam said. "If it's not a case, then what is it?"

"None of your business," Dean said. "It's personal."

"You actually have a personal life?" Sam asking, sounding way too dumfounded for Dean's rising temper. "Whoa. Since when?"

"Since September of '04, dickwad. Now lay off and let me drive, would you?"

"What happened in September of '04?" Sam persisted, strengthening Dean's conviction that his brother was a Fucking Moron.

"You'd think that you'd have learned when to leave well enough alone, college boy, but apparently not. So I'll say it clearer. Shut. The. _Fuck._ Up."

"Fine, whatever," Sam said with a shrug, sinking a little farther into his seat. "You're the one who wants to save the world, anyway."

Dean didn't bother to answer. He had bigger things to worry about.

* * *

Ashodeus was the demon of lust and intoxication, named for the fallen angel known for the same qualities. Ashodeus also had a nasty habit of appearing in bridal suites and strangling bridegrooms on their wedding nights, and that was what actually caught Dean's attention. 

It was two days after Christmas and Sam hadn't come home from his first semester at Stanford, hadn't even bothered to send a card. So Dean grabbed his car and headed out for the first case he could find, which, unfortunately, turned out to be Ashodeus.

He'd thought it was just a simple haunting. He wouldn't realize his mistake till almost two weeks later, and by then, he'd caught Ashodeus' attention, and it was far, far too late.

* * *

"Reno?" Sam said incredulously. "Please tell me you we're just here for gas, or something." 

"No, this is it," Dean said. "We won't be here long, don't worry."

"Dude, you dragged me halfway across the country so you could _gamble?_" Sam said incredulously. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"I'm not here for the slot machines, Sammy."

"It's Sam."

"What-the-fuck-ever. I'm here for a meet, alright? Will you get off my case now?"

"With who?"

"With no one you know or ever will know," Dean said. "I'm gonna drop you off at the motel and I'll be back just after dawn. Don't come looking for you or I will make damn sure you will regret it. Am I clear?"

"Yes massah," Sam said sarcastically. "God forbid I ignore one of your orders."

"Can we not go over that again?" demanded Dean, whose chest still hurt from the shotgun blast three weeks earlier. "Can we just get this over with and get the hell out of this place?"

Sam looked at him with something like real concern for the first time. "Seriously, Dean, what the hell's up? You drove here like you had a firecracker up your ass and now it's like you don't even want to be here."

"I don't," Dean admitted. "And I do."

"Well, that explains a lot," Sam said. "Not."

"It's the best I've got, Sammy," he said, and then pulled into the motel parking lot before Sam could correct him about the name. "I'll see you tomorrow morning."

Sam stared at him for a minute, then shrugged and said, "Alright." Dean watched him get his duffel out of the trunk and walk into the motel office. As soon as he was sure that Sam was safe, he put the car in gear and drove off.

He had to hurry. The sun was almost past the horizon, and he definitely didn't want to be late.

* * *

Ashodeus was a slave to his own sex drive, and unapologetic about the fact. Dean found him and, thinking he was a ghost, tried to chase him off with nothing more than a shotgun filled with rock salt. Ashodeus had laughed in his face and went to rip his throat out. Dean had responded by desperately tossing a bottle of holy water in his face and running like hell. 

Ashodeus had gotten interested in him then, had tracked him from town to town for months, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind him while Dean worked desperately to figure out who was doing this to him. When he figured it out he stopped and waited for Ashodeus to come to him.

That fight had not ended well, but at least he hadn't lost. Exactly. It had been the first of hundreds of smaller fights, spanning over six months and thousands of miles, with the balance of the wins spread evenly between them. The longer Ashodeus stayed in the human realm the closer to human he physically became, and without his demonic strength Dean was a fair match for him.

The collateral damage kept climbing, though, because Ashodeus wasn't afraid to kill a bystander in order to score a point, and Dean was so damn exhausted that he couldn't always save them.

He was exhausted, constantly nursing some sort of injury, and heartsick. Ashodeus wasn't much better, because as he turned further human, human emotion started to seep into him, and his killing ways were beginning to get to him almost as much as they did to Dean. It was inevitable that they would both reach a breaking point, and that breaking point happened to occur in Reno.

Ashodeus wanted Dean, and wasn't going to give up till he'd gotten him. And though Dean had had it drummed into him since childhood that demons were evil and could never be trusted and never, ever make a deal with them, he was weak and Ashodeus was, whatever his faults, inhumanly beautiful.

And so a deal was struck.

* * *

The sun was just slipping below the horizon when Dean pulled into the parking lot of the Peppermill Resort Hotel Casino. He wove his way through the glittering casino below, completely ignoring the hundreds of slot machines in every direction, and went straight for the elevator. 

Sixth floor, sixty-sixth room. Ashodeus was a traditionalist.

He knocked.

The door opened immediately. The first thing Dean's tired eyes saw was the flash of white, white teeth in a bright smile, and then the reflected happiness in his inhumanly green eyes.

"I was almost worried that you would be late, my Eden," Ashodeus said. "I am glad to see that you are not."

"I know," Dean said, and stepped into the room, not bothering to shut the door. Ashodeus immediately wrapped long arms around him, and Dean fell gratefully into the warmth of his embrace, into the press of flesh that had been heated by the fires of hell. Ashodeus was not human, wasn't even close, no matter how human he appeared, and Dean didn't care. This was his comfort, and he would take comfort where comfort was available to be taken. And Ashodeus, well, he was always happy to be taken.

Dean tilted his head back and smiled tiredly. Ashodeus was as tall as Sam, and he'd never noticed that detail before. But Ashodeus was as fair as Sam was dark, and right now, Dean was grateful for that.

"Hello, Ash," he said, and Ash smiled back, and kissed him.

"Hello to you as well, my Eden," Ash whispered against his mouth, and gently closed the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two

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"How long have you been up here?" Dean asked, his eyes half-closed. He was pleasantly close to sleep, and the way Ash kept carding his fingers through Dean's short hair, gently scratching his nails against his scalp, definitely wasn't helping to keep him awake.

"Four months, give or take," Ash told him. Dean opened his eyes wide at that.

"Four months, Ash? You've been up here since last time?"

"Yes."

"You're practically human now."

"That is true," Ash said.

"Why?"

"You prefer it this way, do you not?"

Dean squinted at him. "Well, yeah," he said. "But you hate it."

"Not true," Ash replied, sounding amused. "It is an interesting view of a life that is not my own."

"And you wouldn't want it to be," Dean said.

"No, of course not, for I am exactly who I was born to be, as are we all. But spending several months Above, before our meetings- it is an interesting vacation of sorts, you might say."

"You have a weird idea of a vacation," Dean said. "But alright."

Ash smiled down at him from his position, propped on up one elbow, his long blonde hair tucked behind one ear. "I have weird ideas on everything, as far as you are concerned."

"Not that I'm poster-boy for normal, but yes," Dean said. "Then again, you're not even the poster-boy for _human,_ so what the hell should I know?"

"What indeed?" Ash asked. He seemed amused, for some reason, but then Ash often was. Dean sometimes thought that humanity was just one long comedy for Ash and his kind. It wasn't a comforting thought.

After a few moments of easy silence, Ash brushed curious fingertips against the still-healing wounds on Dean's chest. "What happened to you here? You usually are far less… marked."

"I was shot," Dean said curtly. He'd known that Ash would bring it up, but he didn't want to talk about it. He _didn't._

"You survived such an encounter well," Ash said. "Considering you are alive, and in my bed, not in the hospital or the grave."

"With rock salt," Dean clarified. Ash frowned.

"One of your targets got your weapon?" A spook or a demon would have no need of rock salt. Dean's father was the only hunter to have discovered that particular trick, anyway, so it had to be Dean's weapon.

Dean hesitated just a fraction too long. "Something like that."

Ash leaned further up on his elbow so that he could peer into Dean's face. "What happened to you, my Eden? Who injured you so?"

Dean sighed. It was this sort of thing that made things with Ash complicated. If it was just fucking, or even a little cuddling, he could deal fine. He'd done worse to save lives, and Ash was pretty fucking good in bed. But every time, Ash seemed concerned about him, and that was something that Dean just couldn't deal with. Not with Ash.

"My brother was possessed," Dean said reluctantly. "I unloaded my pistol before I went to meet him, just in case, but he blew me straight through a door. I'll be healing for a while yet."

"I can imagine," Ash murmured, tracing his fingertips feather-light against the healing cuts and the still-visible purple and green deep bruising around them. "So you are still traveling with the estimable Samuel?"

"Yeah," Dean said, letting his head drop back against the pillows. "Trying to find Dad."

"I'm not sure I approve, if he is going to be making a habit of bringing you harm."

Dean closed his eyes. "Don't, Ash. If I hadn't gone back to him, his girlfriend wouldn't have been killed. He wouldn't be in this life that he wanted out of. If anyone should be worried about causing harm, it's me."

"I'm not so sure," Ash said quietly. "He hurts you, my Eden. I can tell."

"You always can," Dean said. Then he opened his eyes. "Look, I really don't want to be talking about this. There's only so many hours till sunrise. Don't we have better things to be doing?"

Ash paused, seemingly reluctant to drop the topic, but Dean's face must have been stubborn enough, because he sighed and relented, brushing a kiss over Dean's lips. "Very well, my Eden," he whispered. "Let us pass the time in more pleasurable pursuits."

"Thank you," Dean sighed, and then fisted one hand into his long blonde hair and kissed him back.

Neither of them said anything for a very long time.

* * *

Sam would never admit it, but he waited up for Dean. 

He was worried, damn it. Dean had looked so upset the entire drive here, like he was driving to his doom, and then not telling Sam what it was about? Something was definitely wrong there, and Sam wanted to know what it was so he could help.

But Dean said it was "personal." Sam snorted. Personal, his ass. Since when had Dean ever kept something from him?

A key scratched in the lock, and Sam hurried to look busy so that Dean would think that he'd just gotten up really early. By the time the door opened, he was lying in bed, a paperback book in his hands, to all appearances engrossed in his reading.

He looked up when Dean came in, feigned surprise. "Hey," he said. "Your meet go alright?"

Dean smiled at him, tired but happier than Sam had seen him in weeks. "Yeah," he said. "I'm kinda tired, though. Let me grab a couple of hours of sleep, then I'll be ready to hit the road."

"Alright," Sam said. He knew that was the most he was going to get out of Dean for the time being, but that didn't stop him from being curious and not a little suspicious. Especially when Dean climbed onto the bed fully dressed instead of stripping down to his boxers like he usually did. That meant that Dean was probably covered in bruises and was trying to hide them. What had he been doing last night? Had he gotten into a fight and didn't want Sam to know about it? It was weird.

He waited patiently for about four hours, then shook Dean awake. Dean muttered curses under his breath, but he got up and went in to take a shower. Sam grabbed his duffel and went to load the car.

There was a man leaning on the hood of their car. Sam stopped dead and stared at him. He was tall, maybe as tall as Sam, with long ice-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and clothes that just screamed, "I'm expensive, ask me how!"

Sam disliked him on sight, and the next two minutes weren't going to increase his opinion anyway.

"Why are you on our car?" he asked, trying very hard to sound polite. The man looked up from his probably deeply important task of inspecting his perfectly manicured nails.

"I'm looking for Dean Winchester," he said. "I thought this was his car."

"It is," Sam said. "He's my brother. Who are you?"

"Your brother calls me Ash," the man replied. "I suppose you may call me by that name, as well."

"That's very kind of you," Sam said through gritted teeth. "What do you want with Dean?"

"To make sure he made it back safely, of course," Ash replied. "He is well?"

"He's taking a shower," Sam said. "You were his meet last night?"

This seemed to amuse the man. "Meet? Ah, yes, I suppose you could say that I was his 'meet.'" The quotation marks around the word were evident in his voice, although it was obvious he would never be so crass as to actually make quote marks with his fingers.

"What else could I say?" Sam said. He was starting to lose his temper- just a little. He really didn't like this guy.

"I am worried about him, and that is all," Ash said soothingly. Sam did not feel soothed.

"He's fine," Sam said.

"He is not, and you know it as well as I," Ash said. "I just want to be certain that he is well."

"I'm his brother, I should know," Sam said. "He looked fine when he came in this morning."

"It is not this morning that I am concerned about, it is the rest of the day, and the week, and the month. I did all I could to ease his mind, but your brother is very sad. There was little I could do in one night."

Sam glared at him. "What, exactly, were you two doing last night?"

Ash opened his mouth, but didn't get a chance to answer because Dean's voice interrupted them. "Sam, you ready to go?" he called from inside their hotel room, and Sam glared again at Ash before calling back, "Yeah, but there's someone here to see you!"

"What the hell?" Dean came out in just his jeans, still holding a towel. There were several bruises on his chest, along with scratch marks. Sam was starting to get an uncomfortable idea what Dean had been doing the night before on his "meet." "Ash," he said quietly. "What are you doing here?"

"Can't I visit to check up on my favorite person?" Ash asked playfully.

"The deal ended at dawn, Ash. You are bound by your word."

"I am not trying to break the deal, my Eden." _What the hell?_ Sam wondered. "_My Eden?"_ "I was merely concerned about you."

"I'm fine," Dean said. "Now go home."

_See?_ Sam gloated inwardly. _Told you he was fine, you freaky bastard._

"You are not fine, my Eden," Ash told him. "You know it perfectly well. I am worried about you, that is all."

"Well, don't," Dean said. "I'm fine." His voice softened a little, and he smiled almost unwillingly at Ash. "Really."

Ash sighed and straightened away from the car to close the distance between them. "_Dean,_" he said, very serious, and Dean stiffened as Ash grabbed his shoulders. "You need looking after. Who better than I to do so?"

_I can look after him!_ Sam wanted to shout. _Hellooo! What am I, chopped liver?_

"I've got Sam," Dean said, earning Sam's undying devotion. "I'll be okay."

"Pardon me," Ash said, sounding offended, "but your brother shot you not three weeks before. I can still see the wounds. You're going to die at this rate, my Eden. I'm not going to just sit idly by and allow that."

_What the fuck?_ Sam thought, outraged. _That wasn't my fault! And why did Dean tell this guy about that anyway?_

"Why?" Dean said. "You'd be released from our deal."

"I would miss you, were you gone," Ash replied. "You should know that, my Eden."

Dean sighed, tilted his head forward and Ash was there, pressing their foreheads together in a gesture more intimate than any kiss. Sam wanted to rip them apart, tear his brother away from this man. "I know," he whispered. "But I can't take you with me, Ash. I just can't. You know why."

"I know," Ash said. "But I will be waiting when you reach your destination. You can count on it."

"I haven't even told you where we're going," Dean said, laughingly irritated. Ash just smiled at him and drew back enough to wrap one arm around Dean's shoulders.

"I could always track you, my Eden. I will always be able to find you."

"You always could, yeah," Dean said. "Fine. I'm not going to be able to stop you, am I?"

"Of course not," Ash said, teasing. "Neither could I ever stop you. We are equal, you and I."

"I know. That's what got us into this mess, remember?" Dean said, pulling away from Ash's friendly grip. Sam wanted to cheer. "I can't stop you from following me, but if you interfere with a case I will do my best to end you. You can be hurt now, you've been up here long enough. Don't forget that."

Sam was starting to become as confused as he was angry, which was saying something.

"I don't wish to interfere with a case, my Eden," Ash said. "You save people and that is quite commendable, though admittedly not my aim. I only wish to keep you safe. Is that so wrong a thing?"

"No, it's not," Dean said. "Don't get in my way, though."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Ash said. "And Dean?"

Dean flinched, as if he wasn't used to hearing his name from that mouth. He probably wasn't, not if Ash called him by pet names all the time.

"Yeah?"

"I am not fully human yet," Ash said. "Remember that."

"I will," Dean said, but he was saying it to empty air, because Ash had completely vanished.

"What. The. Fuck." Sam said. "Dean?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Dean said, turning and making tracks for their room. "Leave off, Sammy."

"Oh, I don't think so," Sam said, following right on his heels. "This time you've actually gotta explain yourself. What the hell happened back there? He just disappeared into fucking thin air!"

"He does that, when he wants to piss me off," Dean said. "I didn't think he'd do it in front of you."

"You obviously didn't think about a lot of things!" Sam yelled. "Dean, that guy wasn't even human!"

"I know," Dean said. He pulled on a shirt, wincing slightly at the pull of three-week-old scabs on his chest. "He's a demon."

"A demon." Sam stared at his brother in disbelief. "You're fucking a demon?"

"It's complicated," Dean said. "Can we just get out of here?"

"Not until you tell me why you're fucking a demon when you usually just kill them," Sam said. "I'm serious, Dean. This is big. Does Dad know about this?"

"He knows about Ashodeus, yes. He doesn't know about our deal."

"Deal? Dean, you made a _deal_ with it, too?"

"Not 'too,' Sammy," Dean said. "Me sleeping with him- it's part of that."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." Sam sat down hard onto the edge of the bed. "Maybe you better start from the beginning."

"It was after Christmas, when you were gone," Dean said. "I didn't realize what he was, just thought he was a ghost. He almost killed me, but I got away."

"That doesn't explain how he came to be your bed-buddy," Sam said.

"I'm getting to it," Dean said, sounding irritated. "He stalked me for a while after that. Then there was the six months we spent playing cat and mouse. Neither of us won, so we finally made a deal- I would meet him once every three months in Reno, sundown to sunrise, and in return he wouldn't kill another human being for as long as I continued to be there."

"And he's following you around again… why?"

"The true demons, not the incorporeal chaos demons and foot soldiers we've had to exorcise before, can manifest in physical form when they're Above. Ashodeus is one of the Olde Ones, the lords of Hell. When they spend time Above, they start turning closer to human the longer they're here. Ashodeus has always been- well, different, you could say, more driven by his desires than his brethren, and he's been Above for four months already."

"So he acts closer to human, too," Sam said. "But if he's weakened now, we can kill him!"

"Maybe," Dean said tiredly. "And if we fail, then he will kill us both. It's too risky."

"But you hunted him on your own for six months!" Sam cried. "And there's two of us now."

"He could have killed me at any time, Sam," Dean said. "We really don't stand much of a chance."

"Then why'd you hunt him, if you knew you weren't going to win?"

"Not much to lose," Dean said. "It's too risky now."

He turned away then, grabbed his bag and walked out the door, and Sam followed silently. He didn't have anything left to say.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three.

* * *

**

It could almost have been any other case. If it weren't for the knowledge of who was going to be there at end of the road, it would have felt just like any other long drive to their next job.

But neither of them could forget that Ashodeus was going to be waiting for them when they got there, and so it wasn't just like any other case. The awkward silence stretched out between them, filled with Dean's music, turned up louder than usual, as if it could drown out all the questions that Sam wanted to ask and Dean didn't want to answer.

Dean spent a lot of time staring straight ahead at the road. Sam spent a lot of time pretending to read the map.

Inside, though, he was burning with questions. Why had Dean done it? Their dad had taught them that there were some battles that you just couldn't win, and if it looked like you were going to lose, then get the hell out. If possible, come back with reinforcements, but if not, then forget about it and move on, because there was no point in tilting at windmills.

But Dean had spent over half a year locked in a battle with a demon. And not just any demon, from his description, but one of the Olde Ones. Sam's demonology might be a little rusty, but even he thought that that sounded a little ominous, and he wanted to know why Dean hadn't followed their Dad's advice, and gotten the hell out.

And then there was this freaking deal he had going on. Sam had read plenty of accounts of deals people had made with demons, and he'd never heard of one like this. Sexual favors in trade for a no-kill promise? It was so unlike Dean that Sam couldn't even wrap his mind around it. It was true that a demon was bound by his word, but all Ashodeus had to do was get one of his kind to kill Dean, and he was free of his promise.

In all the stories he'd ever heard, not one had ended well. All the demons had found a loophole, had found a way out of their deal, and all of the humans had ended up dead. And yet, it had been over a year, and Ashodeus hadn't yet found a way to do the same to Dean. He didn't even seem to want to try.

In fact, he wanted to help Dean with a case. That was just so wrong on so many levels that Sam wasn't quite sure what to do with it. He didn't understand it, any of it, not Ashodeus' motivations, and certainly not Dean's.

Dean didn't look like he was going to clear things up any time soon, so it was up to Sam to figure things out. And he would. One way or another, he was going to get to the bottom of this.

His brother's life could depend on it.

* * *

Dean made sure that he was the first one through their motel room door. If Ash was waiting on the other side, he didn't want to just hand him an opportunity for mischief on a silver platter by having Sam walk in first.

Thankfully, the room was empty. Either Ash hadn't found them yet or he was just biding his time; Dean didn't care. He wasn't here _now,_ is what mattered, so Dean heaved a sigh of relief and yelled at a sulky Sam to bring the damn bags in, already.

Then minutes later, he was washing road grit off his skin in the blissfully hot shower and humming to himself. He hadn't forgotten Ash, not by a long shot, but he was starting to… relax. Just a little bit.

His relaxation came to an abrupt end when he looked up to see Ash grinning at him from the other side of the transparent shower curtain.

"Son of a _bitch!"_ he yelled, jumping about a foot in the air and almost knocking his brains out thanks to the slippery plastic of the tub. Immediately he heard Sam's footsteps approaching the door and his worried voice calling, "Dean? Everything okay?"

"Everything's peachy!" he yelled back, not even trying to tone down the sarcasm in his voice. Ash, in his own elegant way, was laughing at him.

"What happened?"

"It was just a cockroach," he called, glaring straight at Ash. "A big, blond one."

There was a pause. "Oh."

"Exactly." He glared harder. Ash smirked.

"I'll just… go and get a cup of coffee."

"You do that," Dean said, and waited till he heard Sam's footsteps retreat and the door slam before he reached down and shut off the water.

"Don't stop on my account," Ash said pleasantly, but he passed Dean the towel when Dean held out a demanding hand.

"Oh, I will," Dean said, toweling off roughly and stepping out of the shower. "What are you doing here?"

Ash arched one sleek blonde eyebrow. "I thought it was understood that I was in this charming little backwater because I wish to keep you from harm."

"I didn't mean, why are you here in Glenn Springs, Maryland. I meant, why are you _here,_ in my bathroom?"

"Didn't I mention? I'm in the room next door."

"No," Dean said, through gritted teeth. "You didn't."

Ash smiled brightly. "Well, I am."

"Of course you are," Dean said with a sigh. He wrapped the towel around his neck and went back into their room, Ash following right on his heels with a thoughtful sort of leer on his face. "How did you get in, anyway? You just walked through the wall?" Ash nodded. "You're kidding. You walked through the wall?"

"You don't know everything about me," Ash pointed out.

"I never thought I did," Dean said. He started pawing through their bags, looking for a pair of clean jeans. "Though I gotta admit, this one surprised me. If you can walk through walls, why didn't you ever do it back then?"

Ash immediately knew what he was talking about. "When we hunted each other, you mean? Ah, well, there's a bit of a hitch there. Even the oldest of us cannot enter freely where we are unwelcome. We can break the door down, if we must, but it is easier to attack in the open."

Dean considered that. It made a lot of sense. "What if it had been Sam in the shower?"

"Then I wouldn't have been welcome," Ash said with a glint in his eye.

"Right." Dean gave up on the search for clean jeans and just pulled on the pair he'd had on before, then sat down on the edge of his bed bothering to try and find a shirt. Ash sat down next to him, pressed close against his side, and without thinking Dean leaned gratefully into that inhuman warmth.

"I have no clue what I'm supposed to do with you," Dean admitted, and Ash's arm came up around his shoulders and tightened in what probably counted as a hug.

"You do not have to 'do' anything with me, my Eden," Ash said. "I am here merely for your safety."

"See, that's where you're wrong," Dean told him. "Because you being here, on a job? That's pretty much a bad thing."

"How so?"

"Aside from the fact that I must be in some pretty extreme danger if you're feeling the urge to play babysitter? Don't even try and deny it," he said when Ash opened his mouth. "I'm not stupid.

"No, you are far from it," Ash said, and added ruefully, "and I would not be half so interested if you were."

"Yay for me. So, what's going on? And don't do the secretive thing, you know it just drives me fucking nuts."

"Would I do that to you?"

"You would," Dean said fervently. "You so would."

"True, I would, but in this case I am not. I don't have anything to keep hidden, much less the inclination."

"If you don't know anything, why are you so worried?"

"In truth? I do not know. There are whispers, always whispers, but often they mean naught." He paused, tilted his head as if thinking about it. "I suppose you could say that I simply have a bad feeling about this."

"You're probably right," Dean admitted. He leaned his head sideways, till it was resting in the curve of Ash's neck. "I didn't tell you what the case was, did I?"

"No, my Eden, you did not."

"Burnings," Dean said. "Several of them, just in this one town. All of them mothers."

"Ahhh," Ash said, on a hiss of outrushing breath. "You think it is the one that killed your mother?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "That's the point. But if it is…"

"Then you are in danger." They sat there in silence for a moment. Then- "You never asked."

"What?" Dean said.

"The identity of the demon. You never asked."

Dean didn't look at him. "I figured that if you knew, you wouldn't tell me. And if you did know, what's the point?"

"I know he is one of us," Ash said.

"That's what I was afraid of."

"I do not know who he is, for he hides even from his own kind. But you must be careful, my Eden. You must be very, very careful. Whoever he is, he is out for blood. I would be very upset if he spilled yours."

"I don't need to be careful," Dean said, and pressed a kiss to the side of Ash's neck. "I've got you."

"Yes," Ash said, ducking his head so that he could look straight in Dean's eyes. "You do."

And Dean knew, beyond doubt, that it was the truth.

* * *

Ashodeus wasn't there when Sam got back, and he found himself both bothered and relieved. On one hand, he couldn't keep an eye on him when he wasn't there. On the other, he wasn't there. Which meant that he wasn't with Dean.

And that was the important part.

"Hey," he said, and held up the extra cup of coffee. "I got you one."

"Oh, thank god," Dean said, and stretched his hand out pleadingly. "I need a fucking coffee."

Sam handed it to him, smiling a little at the blissful expression on Dean's face as he took an enthusiastic gulp, heedless of the hot liquid he was swallowing. But then he thought about why his brother was having coffee cravings, and his good mood swung right back down again.

"He's gone?" Sam asked. For a brief while, he'd tried to think of the demon as "it," but even in his memory Ashodeus had such an unabashed sexuality that thinking of him in the gender neutral seemed almost criminal.

"Wha? Oh, Ash," Dean said. "Yeah, he's gone."

Sam wanted to know how Dean could just _forget_ about a six-foot-something gorgeous demon that he was sleeping with that had somehow appeared in their bathroom. Which, actually, reminded him.

"How did he get in there?" he asked. "Did he do the teleportation trick again?"

"No," Dean said, his eyes rueful over the rim of the cup. "No, the bastard walked through the fucking wall."

Sam blinked. "Did you know he could do that?" He really needed to figure out the extent of the bastard's powers, stat.

"Notsomuch, no," Dean said. He took another sip of hot coffee. Sam figured that his tense expression could be the situation. Or it could be something else.

"He say anything interesting?" If Dean replied with "Notsomuch, no," again, he was going to kill something. If Dean and Ashodeus hadn't been talking, then they'd been doing something else. And he didn't want to think about that "something else," thanks so very much. He didn't want to think about it at all.

"Yeah," Dean said, to Sam's relief. Then he looked away, fiddled with his coffee cup. He couldn't meet Sam's eyes, and that made Sam more than just a little uneasy. Because Dean- Dean was one of the best liars he'd ever met; Dean could bullshit his way through any situation on sheer balls alone, and Dean not being able to meet his eyes meant that something was up, and it was either deeply personal or deeply fucked-up. Or both.

"And?"

Dean glanced up at him, fast, and then looked away again. "He told me a couple things."

Sam held onto both his impatience and his growing fear. Barely. "Like what?"

"Just a couple things about our case, the demon we're after. You know."

No, Sam didn't know. But he was starting to get a clue.

"Our case," he said. "The demon. Dean, what exactly is our case here? Since, you know, you kinda forgot to mention it to me beforehand."

Dean didn't say anything.

"It has to do with the thing that killed mom and Jess," he said disbelievingly. "It's _connected_ to the demon we're after, and you didn't even bother to tell me? What the fuck, Dean!"

Now, Dean met his gaze. He was like a little kid sometimes- he avoided conflict like the plague, but once it was all over but the shouting, everything was a-okay again. Dean dearly loved a good shouting fight. He once told Sam that it cleared the air like a good rainstorm on a hot day. Which was why Sam tried never, ever to let himself shout at Dean, because Dean always won these arguments- but sometimes, well, sometimes he just couldn't help himself.

"Four women, all of them with young children, have been burned to death," Dean said, his voice once again filled with its usual leashed energy. The problem with Dean, Sam knew, is that you never knew what kind of energy it was until too late.

"On the ceiling?" Sam asked. His voice absolutely did not waver.

"No," Dean said. "In their beds. With their husbands lying next to them. The sheets didn't even get scorched. The police are all puzzled; the crackpots are claiming spontaneous combustion. Of course, they're right, but no one ever listens to them."

"It doesn't sound like the same thing at all," Sam said, puzzled now. "I mean, there's a million other things that cause fire deaths. "How do you know it's related?"

"Because they're all mothers," Dean said. "And all of them died at the exact same time- the same time Mom and Jess were killed."

"Oh," Sam said. "So it is related."

"Has to be, yeah."

Sam thought about it for a second, and found himself getting angry all over again. "It's entirely possible that the demon is here, in this very town," he said. "And instead of calling Dad, you let a _demon_ that you're fucking tag along on a case!"

"It's more complicated than that, Sammy," Dean said. He sounded tired. The use of the nickname just boiled Sam's blood even more.

"Oh, don't give me that bullshit. What the fuck are you doing, Dean? How can you possibly trust him?"

"I don't," Dean said. He sounded a little surprised. "He's a demon. It's not in his nature to be trustworthy."

"Then why?" Sam demanded. "Why let him come along at all? This could be it, Dean! This could be the day we've been waiting for all our lives, and you're going to risk it by letting _him_ in?"

Dean looked at him, serious. "It's bigger than you think," he quoted softly. "That's what Dad told us. Remember? And I trust Dad to the ends of the world, but when it comes down to it, if I'm fighting one of the Olde Ones, I know who's stronger, and it's not Dad."

Sometimes, Dean's pragmatism fucking _terrified_ Sam. "You do," he breathed. "Trust him, I mean. You trust him to save your life against this thing."

"I have to, Sammy," Dean said. "When you love someone-" He stopped abruptly.

Sam felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. For a second, he couldn't breathe. "You _what?_" he gasped.

Dean wouldn't look at him. "Figure of speech, Sammy."

Sam shook his head frantically. "No, it isn't, I heard you-"

Dean's head snapped around. "You hear what you want to hear, Sam. You always have." He turned away, set his cheap cup of coffee on the table with the kind of deliberate care that meant the was trying not to slam it down. "I'm going out."

"Dean, wait-" Sam says. Because he knows what Dean means. He's not going out. He's going to _him._

Dean shakes his head, grabs his jacket. His hand hesitates over the cell phone for the first time since he's owned one, but eventually he picks it up too and puts in his pocket. "No, Sam," he says, his voice all low and rough and somehow, sad. As if he has any fucking right. "I'm going out."

The door doesn't slam behind him. It probably would have hurt less if it did.


End file.
